New Delhi, 02June (Asiantribune.com): Concern over Indian students in Australia continues with reports of ‘fear and fury’ as the Times of India headlined the experience of a 27-year old outside a Taxi stand in Melbourne.

Also in Melbourne, a taxi driver from Hyderabad was beaten by a drunken passenger after he expressed inability to take him further due to technical problem in his vehicle. The 35-year-old victim suffered injuries on face, legs, and hands; his two teeth were broken. He doesn’t see the attack as racially motivated though. It (the attack) was an ‘opportunistic crime’, whatever it may mean to those outside Down Under.

On Sunday the Indian students staged a protest rally in Melbourne. Here we present the exclusive photos of that rally, which ended up with some students finding themselves on the wrong side of law, as a report put it. The Federation of Indian Students of Australia organized the protest, which, according to The Age, ended with the cops ‘stomping’ on a student’s chest, smashing the legs another and ‘punching repeatedly on the face’ of some others.

ABC Radio quoted protestors as saying that police used excessive force. Some 25 protesters were arrested. They have since been released, according to the Indian Consulate

Manmohan Singh government hopes that the attacks on Indian students in Australia would end.

‘The Prime Minister has spoken to the Australian Prime Minister [Kevin Rudd]. I have spoken to the Foreign Affairs Minister [of Australia] and our Mission [in Canberra] is in touch with the students from India and also the government of Australia. So, I hope things will be sorted out,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna told reporters outside Parliament House.

The 'peace rally' organized by Federation of Indian Students in Australia (FISA) and National Union of Students started from outside the Royal Melbourne Hospital, where Shravan Kumar student from Andhra Pradesh, is in a critical condition in the intensive care unit after being stabbed by a screwdriver by a group of teens on Sunday last.

From the hospital, the marchers proceeded to the Victorian Parliament in Spring Street, carrying placards with messages like 'Save our Students' and 'Stop Racist Violence’.